Easter Eggs

Happy Easter, to those who celebrate. I hope your kids had their fill of scavenging Easter Eggs this morning. My wife, my four-year-old boy and I returned to Phoenix yesterday from our trip to San Antonio, where an excellent time was had by all. Sixteen hours of driving over two days has left me with little time to pull together a decent diary on scavenging for bargains, so what follows are random thoughts from the past week.

- San Antonio is a great city. Steeped in history and thoroughly modern, it offers a lot for us scavengers - antiques stores are scattered at least from Perrin Beitel in the North, down Broadway and into downtown; pawn shops and thrift stores are numerous, and neighborhoods have plenty of yard sales and rummage sales. The Alamo, the River Walk, the Children's Museum and the Witte Museum were highlights of our trip.

- I was pleased to see some items that I have in my collection in the antiques stores and that they were similarly priced to what I'm asking.

- I also took a perverse pleasure in seeing that some dealers had totally misidentified certain items.

- It seems like it is getting harder and harder to find resaleable items at the thrifts. Are people checking values of old household items on the internet before they donate them?

- While glass, pottery and porcelain are pretty, I really enjoy ephemera - bits of paper goods that were never meant to last - like posters and postcards and menus and cards. They give me a much closer connection to history than the stuff that was built to last.

- If Chuck Norris wants to be President of West Texas, he's welcome to it. Thousands of square miles of absolutely nothing but scrub and dust.

- It was surprising to see wind farms in Texas. At one point, we saw oil fields to the South and windmills to the North.

- Twitter has turned into a great resource for me, as I am following several dealers, large and small, which has helped me see what's selling and at what prices.

Thanks for indulging me this week. I'll be back next Sunday with something more substantial.

So, what's your deal this week?